You can't tell the history of late night without Joan Rivers. In this segment from 1982, Rivers welcomes Betty White to The Tonight Show.
Late Night Last Century is a weekly column highlighting some of the funniest and most unforgettable comedy from late night, talk shows, and variety shows of the 20th century currently streaming on YouTube. Today, we go back to 1982, when Joan Rivers, guest hosting for Johnny Carson, welcomed Betty White tostarting as a guest in 1965 and eventually becoming the program’s most-celebrated fill-in host.
Despite her loyal work as a fill-in host, by 1986, her relationship with Carson famously came to an end. In October, she began hostingon Fox. He took the decision as a personal slight, shunning Rivers privately and professionally for the rest of his life. Rivers’ show came to an end the following May, as executives pressured the comic to fire her husband and manager, Edgar Rosenberg, blaming him for her poor ratings. Eventually, the executives scrapped the whole enterprise. Rosenberg took his own life, and Rivers would not return tountil 2014, when she made an appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s first episode. She died in September of that year.
The horrible treatment of Rivers by colleagues and network executives is one of the great tragedies of late night. But despite all that, Rivers remains one of the most iconic figures in late night history, breaking down barriers and being reliably hilarious all the while. Her gifts as a host are no clearer than in the below clip from December 2, 1982., a short-lived game show she hosted.
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